Related papers: A universal strategy for decoupling stiffness and …
Networks of semiflexible or stiff polymers such as most biopolymers are known to deform inhomogeneously when sheared. The effects of such non-affine deformation have been shown to be much stronger than for flexible polymers. To date, our…
We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
This study focuses on comparing the individual polymer chain dynamics in an entangled polymeric liquid under different shear and extension rates. Polymer chains under various shear rates and extension rates were simulated using a…
Living tissues show an extraordinary adaptiveness to strain, which is crucial for their proper biological functioning. The physical origin of this mechanical behaviour has been widely investigated using reconstituted networks of collagen…
Polymerization and formation of crosslinked polymer networks are important processes in manufacturing, materials fabrication, and in the case of hydrated polymer networks, synthesis of biomedical materials, drug delivery, and tissue…
Reducing the complexity of cross-linked polymer networks by preserving their main macroscale properties, is key to understanding them, and a crucial issue is to relate individual properties of the polymer constituents to those of the…
Materials with network-like microstructure, including polymers, are the backbone for many natural and human-made materials such as gels, biological tissues, metamaterials, and rubbers. Fracture processes in these networked materials are…
Analyzing nonlinear conformational relaxation dynamics in elastic networks corresponding to two classical motor proteins, we find that they respond by well-defined internal mechanical motions to various initial deformations and that these…
Single-chain elasticity is of fundamental importance in polymer physics, as it underlies many of the unique properties of polymer systems. Recently, there has been interest in characterizing the elastic properties of catenanes, molecular…
We present theoretical and experimental studies of the elastic response of fibrous networks subjected to uniaxial strain. Uniaxial compression or extension is applied to extracellular networks of fibrin and collagen using a shear rheometer…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
Topological entanglements in polymers are mimicked by sliding rings (slip-links) which enforce pair contacts between monomers. We study the force-extension curve for linear polymers in which slip-links create additional loops of variable…
We present a unified theory for the longitudinal dynamic response of a stiff polymer in solution to various external perturbations (mechanical excitations, hydrodynamic flows, electrical fields, temperature quenches ...) that can be…
Soft biological tissues exhibit a remarkable resilience to large mechanical loads, a property which is associated with the strain stiffening capability of the biopolymer networks that structurally support the tissues. Yet, recent studies…
Continuum elasticity is a powerful tool applicable in a broad range of physical systems and phenomena. Yet, understanding how and on what scales material disorder may lead to the breakdown of continuum elasticity is not fully understood. We…
For thin networked materials, which are spatial discrete structures constructed by continuum components, a paradox on the effective thickness defined by the in-plane and out-of-plane stiffnesses is found, i.e. the effective thickness is not…
Athermal models of disordered fibrous networks are highly useful for studying the mechanics of elastic networks composed of stiff biopolymers. The underlying network architecture is a key aspect that can affect the elastic properties of…
We question the network affinity assumption in modeling chain orientations under polymer deformations, and the use of the stretch measure projected from the right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor (or non-affine micro-stretches derived from…
Predicting the time and temperature dependent behavior of polymer networks under complex loading is essential for the design of advanced elastomeric materials. Many practical applications involve combinations of deformation modes, such as…
We propose a continuum theory to model the Mullins effect, which is ubiquitously observed in polymer composites. In the theory, the softening of the materials during the stretching process is accounted for by considering the delamination of…